I am reminded of the last time something like this happened in my church. I'm sure that was worse than this is going to be. I say that because I figure there can't possibly be anyone who is more offended by a rite for sex couples than the people who were so freaked out by a gay bishop in New Hampshire that they created a splitter denomination. I can't imagine it. I hope I don't have to. Just in case it turns out I do, can everyone who appreciates Bishop Ed doing this click on his name and send him an email telling him so? The news lightened my load considerably and gave me hope that this good news wasn't going to turn into a diocese wide fiasco.
Good things are hard to do sometimes. People don't like change. Episcopalians in particular do not like change. You should hear what people say when we use other-than-what-we-always-use service music. I can't sing it, I don't know it, it sounds like a bunch of seagulls screeching in there and did we mention it's different and we actually have to pay attention?? We've always done it this way. We've always handling homosexuals by winking, nodding, and pretending they aren't there. We don't want to actually talk about it because then I'll have to confront my feelings on the subject.
I think that's the biggest problem we had when Gene Robinson was approved as the bishop of New Hampshire. People were forced to confront how they felt about homosexuality because it made the news. Fox News, in particular, made it sound like we had just approved the ordination of a dirty, overly handsy, parishioner molester priest to the bishopric. I heard the inside story: That was only inappropriate touching if the priest is gay. If that were inappropriate touching the rest of the time, I've been molested by an army of filthy dirty priests and and didn't even realize it. I suppose if I think back very carefully, a handful of them *might* be gay and I just wasn't paying attention. People were responding to the words Episcopal Church with: The gay church?
Never mind that we had two token gay people in our congregation at the time and even though we were small, we didn't even have 10% of our congregation made up of homosexuals, we were the "gay church". By this point in my life, I wasn't offended by this except by the inaccuracy of the statement. My best friend isn't straight. Many of my college friends were gay. Gay, and faithful Christians. I made a snide remark about only having two and answered the question with a yes.
I heard from other people that it was embarrassing. That they didn't know what to say when their business associates asked about it. They didn't know what to say? I suppose the words "Yes, that's my church and I didn't much like the decision but New Hampshire wanted him as their bishop and General Convention decided to give their consent." never popped into their minds. They had to confront their own feelings about something that happened in their denomination, and they didn't like it. We all had to think about what we believe.
I have been in their shoes more than once. I grew up being taught (though no one much dwelt on the subject) that homosexuality was wrong. I didn't know why, except that the Bible supposedly said so. God, finding my intolerance obnoxious I suppose, decided to show me otherwise. I was confronted, repeatedly, with good fruit from supposedly bad trees. I saw the Holy Spirit working through gay men. I saw it and I felt it. I had spent enough time with the Pentecostal types to recognize it. I wasn't stupid. I knew what I was seeing. I was being confronted almost daily with good fruit from people who were supposedly living in sin. People who were supposed to be intrinsically disordered to borrow a phrase from the Roman Catholic Church, and doing God's good work here on earth. It didn't make sense. Especially since Jesus was the one who put that phrase into my vocabulary:
Luke 6:43“For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. 44“For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. 45“The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.The passage drives it home. They wouldn't be doing these good things if they were bad guys. I had to figure this out. These men weren't struggling with their sexuality. They weren't fighting the evil inside to keep from being attracted to other men anymore than I was fighting my own attraction to men. They weren't good trees fighting off a case of blight and producing fruit in spite of it. They were good, spiritual fruit producing fruits.
It took me a while to get it but I did. It wasn't easy. I didn't like it much. God won out. I finally figured out that my feelings, about other woman hitting on me, were misplaced. No, I didn't understand, but I'm not gay. I'm not supposed to. I don't have to. A friend of mine once told me a fellow parishioner told him that what goes on in his bedroom makes her sick and my response that he should asked her who in the church she enjoyed fantasizing about. I don't know about her, but I don't go to church to think about sex, and I laugh a little when it comes up because it makes me a little uncomfortable, but here's the thing: Every single time someone gets married in church, we're bringing God into our sex lives. Every single time. Sex is part of who we are. It's part of that nominally uncomfortable metaphor of the Church being the Bride of Christ. It shows up in the nativity story when Luke points out that Mary and Joseph weren't living together when she became pregnant. It's there. The assumption that there was sex when there wasn't gets made an issue. Your body is a temple, according to Paul, and a person should be careful what one does in a temple. How one does it to be specific and with whom.
So it makes sense that when homosexual people set out to create their own families with their partners they want the Church's blessing. They want an outward and visible sign of what God has already down in their lives and this is a good thing. It's a door opening. It's a way for aunties (me) and mothers and fathers to have something to tell their kids to cool it and wait for something more special and permanent. This is a good thing.
A very good thing. Yes, we're all going to have to confront our feelings about it. It might be painful. There will be hurt feelings, foot stomping, maybe even a little embarrassment. I would suggest not attending one of these rites if that is the case. I don't suggest leaving either. We already had a gay bishop in New Hampshire and a woman as our primate. If a liturgy you don't have an occasion to use being added to the list of things no one is asking you to use or attend or officiate over freaks you out, maybe you need to do some soul searching. We'll still love you.
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